


out of harm's way

by Twice_before_Friday



Series: Altered & Extended - season 1 [18]
Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Concussions, Episode: s01e18 Scheherazade, Gen, Injury, Protective Gil Arroyo, Stand Alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:00:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26251552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twice_before_Friday/pseuds/Twice_before_Friday
Summary: There's a flash of fear, a flicker of acceptance that this is how it all ends, and then a hard body slamming into his, tackling him to the ground out of the path of the falling metal. His head slams into the stage floor hard enough to bounce off and impact again, his awareness sinking to an inky blackness darker than the depths of the ocean, only to be pulled violently back to the surface by a pained shout.He can't be certain, but he doesn't think it came from him.
Relationships: Gil Arroyo & Malcolm Bright
Series: Altered & Extended - season 1 [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1557952
Comments: 20
Kudos: 71





	out of harm's way

**Author's Note:**

> All works in this series are stand alone. You don't need to have read the others to read this one.
> 
> Thanks, as always, to KateSamantha for looking this over.

_Bright?_

_Gil, are those floor mics on?_

\---

Malcolm is still fitting together the puzzle pieces in his head, tying Ívan's deadly past to the murder of Javier Suarez, so absorbed in the details that he misses the blur of movement in the wings of the stage. The second it takes to shift from solving the mystery to recognizing that the threat is in front of him is a second too long. By the time he realizes Ívan has released the lighting truss from the ceiling, the whir of it's descent is filling his ears, and by then it's too late.

There's a flash of fear, a flicker of acceptance that this is how it all ends, and then a hard body slamming into his, tackling him to the ground out of the path of the falling metal. His head slams into the stage floor hard enough to bounce off and impact again, his awareness sinking to an inky blackness darker than the depths of the ocean, only to be pulled violently back to the surface by a pained shout. 

He can't be certain, but he doesn't think it came from him. 

Muddled though he is, he feels compelled to investigate, just to be safe. It surprises him to find his eyes are closed — he doesn't remember closing them, doesn't remember much of what's happening at all, really — and as he pries them open, a jolting pain spears through his retinas and bounces around his skull for good measure, forcing him to squeeze his eyes shut tight again. When he tries to lift his hands up to his head in a futile attempt to stop the pounding in his brain, though, only his right arm is willing to cooperate. 

Panic begins to overtake his confusion, visions of his father pinning his arms to his body while holding a damp rag over his face breaking free from the confines of his memory with a suffocating clarity. He cries out, struggling for freedom — to get away from Martin, to get away from the memory; it's all the same at this point — but the grip around him only tightens as he thrashes. He's distantly aware of a worried voice shouting his name, but only begins to settle when he realizes it's not Martin's falsely honeyed tones that are calling out to him, but something far more familiar and infinitely more comforting.

"Bright!" Gil calls out, not for the first time, but it's the pain in his voice that finally cuts through the fog that's clouding Malcolm's mind.

"Gil?" Malcolm huffs, his breath coming out fast and shallow as he tries to get his bearings. He's not quite sure why, but Gil seems to be laying almost entirely on top of him, completely compressing his left side.

"Are you hurt?" Gil's voice is tight in a way that makes Malcolm's stomach clench uncomfortably, but he's still so confused about what's happening that he can't quite work out why.

"No?" Malcolm says, but it comes out far more like a question than a statement. Addled as he is, he still recognizes the signs and reluctantly adds, "Perhaps a concussion?"

"Shit," Gil mutters.

"Just a small one," Malcolm assures him. He's even fairly certain that's not a lie, since he's coherent enough to recognize the signs.

"Mmmhmm." Gil clearly doesn't trust his self-diagnosis, as one of his hands makes its way to Malcolm's head, carefully feeling for abrasions, a litany of apologies falling from his lips with every hiss that Malcolm tries to bite back. Gil's fingers move fast but thorough, and it's only a matter of seconds before he says, "You're not bleeding. Do you think you can try to get up?"

His head is throbbing but the disorientation is fading by the second. And though he's sure he's going to have some pretty spectacular bruising on his back, it doesn't feel like he's sustained any serious injuries beyond a minor concussion.

"My radio slid away when we fell," Gil grunts through clenched teeth. "We need to let JT and Powell know which way he went."

Suddenly Malcolm remembers why they're laying on the ground in the first place. 

Ívan Castillo.

The lighting truss.

Gil's pained shout.

Malcolm jerks his head up from the floor to look at Gil, nearly throwing up as the theatre spins around him at the sudden movement. He swallows hard around the bile that floods his mouth, not even waiting for the spots to clear from his vision before he asks, "Are you okay?"

The grimace on Gil's face screams that something is wrong, but Gil merely pushes himself up on an elbow, lines drawing tight on his face as he tries to lever himself up enough to give Malcolm room to shimmy out from beneath him.

"Gil," Malcolm says, refusing to move until he gets an answer. "Are you hurt?"

"My leg is pinned," Gil brushes it off like it's no big deal, but Malcolm can tell there's more to it than that. "We need to hurry. If Ívan gets away now, he'll disappear for good this time."

Malcolm begins to wriggle out, his head protesting every jostle, but he freezes when Gil sucks in a sharp breath as he attempts to drag his body from beneath the man. 

"Just go," Gil grunts, and Malcolm jerks himself back in one quick motion, the room swaying and tilting around him at the hasty movement.

Keeping his eyes closed against the whirling sensation, Malcolm reaches out in the general direction of Gil's radio, patting the ground until his hand finds the hard plastic casing. He pulls the radio to his mouth and jams down the PTT button, focussing his attention on the words coming out of his mouth rather than the queasy feeling that's threatening to make itself known all over the stage.

"Ívan's making a run for it. He just took off through the, uh..." Malcolm realizes he has no idea which way the man left after dropping the lighting truss on them.

"East orchestra doors," Gil says behind him, his breath coming out in short puffs.

"East orchestra doors," Malcolm repeats into the radio. "He'll head for the main exit. Easier to blend with the crowd once he leaves the building."

"On it," Dani's voice comes back almost immediately, followed quickly by, "You okay, Bright? You don't sound good."

"We'll be fine, just catch Ívan," Malcolm says before dropping the radio to the ground and slowly pushing himself to his hands and knees, crawling back towards Gil, pleasantly surprised to find that the world has stilled when he finally opens his eyes. The relief is short lived, though, as his eyes travel down Gil's body to find a pool of blood, gleaming a lurid red in the stage lights, spreading beneath his leg. "Shit. Gil you're bleeding."

"Yeah, kid," Gil huffs a pained laugh, "I noticed that."

Malcolm makes his way over on hands and knees, blinking a few times to clear his vision and get a closer look at the damage. A metal fragment from one of the light fixtures is embedded in the meaty part of Gil's calf, sliced through pants, skin, and muscle. It's more than a few inches long, and judging from the other lights on the twisted metal truss, Malcolm guesses it's about two to three inches deep in his leg.

"I can try to lift it, if you want. Or we can wait for help?" Malcolm pushes himself back to sit on his feet, the nausea slowly ebbing away with every cycle of breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth.

"Do you think you can?" Gil asks, twisting his upper body to get a good look at Malcolm, his gaze piercing as he searches Malcolm for signs of injury. "How bad are you hurt, Bright?"

"I'm fine," Malcolm shuffles up to the edge of the metal racking before he gets to his feet. He knows they need to move quickly. It's only been a few minutes since Ívan took off, which means there's still hope they can catch up, but every moment they spend on the stage is another chance for Ívan to get away. Even more concerning, Ívan has proven that he'll do whatever it takes to avoid capture, and Malcolm just sent JT and Dani right into his path.

"On three?" Malcolm asks, steeling himself for the impending dizziness. 

Gil licks his lips and gives a terse nod. They're both aware that it's going to hurt like hell, but Malcolm isn't willing to leave Gil alone and Gil isn't willing to let their suspect go free.

"One." 

Malcolm leans over to grip the framework, metal cold against his hands.

"Two." 

He plants his feet and bends at the knees, sucking a steadying breath deep into his lungs and mentally apologizing to Gil for the pain he's about to cause.

"Three."

He lifts with every ounce of strength he has, and then digs even deeper to find a strength he didn't know he possessed. His biceps, quads, and glutes burn as he strains to lift the hulking weight, vision blacking out from the increased pressure inside his already aching head. Even without being able to see it, though, he can tell exactly when the metal rips free of Gil's leg. Despite the man's best efforts to bite back the groan, a bark of pain escapes from Gil's lips as the metal is torn from his calf. 

Malcolm's body trembles under the weight of the racking, but the effort pays off and the lighting fixture is lifted high enough for Gil to slide free. 

As soon as Gil gives the all clear, Malcolm drops the truss and falls to his knees, his body collapsing over the metal beneath him. He only loses consciousness for a matter of seconds, but it's enough for Gil to pull himself to Malcolm's side, dropping a warm hand on the back of Malcolm's neck to help ground him as he comes back around.

"Bright? Are you alright?" The worry is clear in Gil's voice.

Malcolm sucks in a shaky breath and pushes himself up, thankful for Gil's steady presence to keep him stable as the renewed pounding in his head threatens to knock him over.

"I'm good, it's just a head rush," Malcolm smiles at Gil, an assurance the older man isn't buying, judging by the deep crease between his eyebrows. "How's the leg? Can you walk?"

Malcolm looks down at the bloody mess that he can just barely make out through the tear in Gil's pants. He realizes they're going to have to do something to stem the bleeding before they go after Ívan, so he reaches down and grabs the edges of the fabric, ripping it open, fighting with the material as he attempts to tear a strip off. It takes a minute, but he finally manages to rip a makeshift bandage from the pant leg.

"I liked these slacks," Gil grunts, fists grasping the metal in front of him hard enough to turn his knuckles white as Malcolm wraps the strip of fabric around the wound and ties it with a knot at his shin. It serves the dual purpose of applying pressure and slowing the blood loss, but the way Gil sucks in air in through his teeth as Malcolm tightens the knot tells him that it hurts a hell of a lot more than he's letting on.

"Sorry," Malcolm winces in sympathy, hating that he's hurting the man that's only ever brought him comfort and kept him safe.

"It's fine," Gil pants, then adds with a smirk, "you can buy me a new pair."

Malcolm smiles in return, taking the comment as the forgiveness that it is. "Do you think you can walk?"

They both know that neither of them are in any condition to be chasing down a killer, but nonetheless, at Gil's nod, they struggle to their feet, leaning heavily on one another as Gil struggles with putting weight on his leg and Malcolm struggles with which way is up as the theatre spins around him.

With only a brief pause for a few deep breaths, they start to move. Gil loops his arm around Malcolm's shoulders, using him as a crutch each time his injured leg needs to bear his weight. Malcolm, in turn, wraps an arm around Gil's waist and uses the man for balance whenever his vision begins to grey out around the edges, the concussion making itself felt with every step they take.

They move as quickly as they can, hobbling off stage and out of the theatre, making their way to the sound of the commotion coming from the front doors. From the balcony above, they see Dani and JT with guns drawn, aiming at Ívan, who has a petrified Prima in his grasp.

Even from as far as they are, even with his head pounding and spinning, Malcolm can read the desperation in the man's body language and knows that he won't hesitate to kill to secure his freedom.

He also realizes that, for Ívan, the freedom of an American prison might seem preferable to the Cuban D.I. getting their hands on him, and an idea begins to form in his mind.

"Stay back!" Ívan shouts as they round the corner to the top of the grand staircase, Gil pulling his gun with his free hand as soon as Ívan notes their presence, "I will kill her, like Javier."

Raising his own free hand in a gesture of peace while he and Gil slowly make their way down the stairs, Malcolm begins to speak.

"You've already proven what you'll do. But it's over. If you run, it won't just be the NYPD chasing you. We spoke to Cuban D.I. this morning." Malcolm feels Gil's gaze shift to him, can practically hear the man's ' _what the hell, kid_ ' in his head, but he pushes on, knowing it's their best shot of freeing the Prima and capturing Ívan. "What do you think they'll do with you? They're not exactly big on fair trials. If you walk outside, you're all theirs."

"You're lying," Ívan shouts, but Malcolm can see his words sinking in, taking root, spreading. Can see the fear in the man's eyes that, perhaps, it's not a lie at all.

"Look into the street. You're gonna see a delivery truck blocking traffic. That's them," Malcolm says as he and Gil reach the bottom of the stairs and cautiously inch forward.

"Is there really a delivery truck out there?" Gil murmurs, quiet enough that only Malcolm can hear.

"It's New York. There's always a delivery truck," Malcolm whispers with a small shrug. As expected, Ívan turns to look towards the street, providing enough of a distraction that he can get the Prima clear, with a shout of, "Détourné!"

She spins from Ívan's grip in a flawlessly executed move, leaving space for JT to take a non-lethal shot and disarm the man. JT and Dani rush forward to cuff the man, the shout of, "clear" allowing Malcolm to finally relax, which only seems to make his head swim even more.

"You good?" Dani asks, looking to the two men as they prop one another up, Ívan secure in JT's custody. "The bus is on its way. Traffic was blocked by a delivery truck."

"See?" Malcolm says to Gil with a smile that doesn't quite make its way to his eyes as the room begins to ebb away. He blinks hard and pulls himself upright, heaving in a lungful of air to try and clear his blotchy vision.

"Am I imagining things, or did you just speak... ballet?" Gil asks, taking a hobbled step away from Malcolm, sliding his hand from across his shoulder to rest on the juncture of his neck, giving a slight squeeze and small but genuine smile.

"If you must know, my mother made me take ballet class. Forfiveyears" Malcolm says, but even he can hear the words running together. He scrubs a hand over his face as he adds, "I showed greatpromise." 

"Well, bravo," Gil says, but his eyebrows knit together in concern, whether from the way Malcolm's speech is starting to slur or the way the colour drains completely from his face, Malcolm isn't sure. "Kid? You okay?"

"I'm fine..." Malcolm says, the words fading away as he crumples to the ground. The next thing he knows he's looking up at the lofty ceiling above him, with a very worried looking Gil kneeling next to him.

"Hey there, city boy," Gil says quietly, his hand resting lightly atop Malcolm's head, thumb brushing over his hairline at his forehead. "Gave me a bit of a scare there. You dropped like a bag of stones."

Malcolm doesn't remember that. But he's willing to take Gil at his word, since he's lying flat out on the floor and his body is aching in ways that it wasn't a moment ago. 

"My head hurts." He doesn't mean to say it. It just sort of...slips out. It's true though. His head is pounding.

"Yeah, kid, I know. I'm sorry." Guilt racks Gil's features as he looks down at Malcolm, and Malcolm realizes Gil is blaming himself for the minor concussion he sustained while Gil was _saving his life_. He starts to push himself up, getting as far as propping his elbows on the ground, before Gil is pushing down firmly on his chest, a quiet but unyielding, "Nope," the only answer to his movement.

Malcolm chooses to obey the order, just this once, and settles back against the carpet beneath him. He lays a hand over Gil's where it rests above his heart, though, needing him to understand it's not his fault. 

"You saved my life," he says sincerely. It's not the first time, it probably won't be the last, but Malcolm is grateful nonetheless. "Thank you."

Dani walks over as Gil gives his fingers a squeeze and smiles warmly down at him. She ends the phone call she was on and slips her cell back into her pocket. "Ambulance is here. I'm gonna go meet them outside and lead them in, then JT and I will take Castillo in for booking."

"Good work, Powell. Keep in touch and let me know if anything comes up," Gil says, looking up with a grateful smile.

"You guys need anything? Do you want me to call Jessica?" Dani offers, her nose crinkling at the thought of having to break the news to the imposing woman that her son was injured, _again_ , while on a case.

"No!" Malcolm says, attempting to push himself up again, only to be halted by Gil's hand. "Mother does not need to know about this. Thank you."

Dani smirks but gives him a nod before heading out to meet the paramedics. Malcolm closes his eyes and lowers his head tenderly back to the carpet, avoiding the lump left behind by the theatre stage. He cracks one eye to look up at Gil, reading microexpressions that show more worry than pain, and he wonders if the man's leg is hurting less or if his concern for Malcolm is overshadowing everything else, including his own well-being.

"How's your leg?" he asks, having finally learned that, sometimes, it's better to just ask, rather than try to profile an answer.

"Still attached," Gil says, brushing off his concern. At Malcolm's unrelenting stare Gil purses his lips and adds, "It's fine, kid. The bleeding has slowed and it probably just needs a couple stitches."

As the paramedics make their way in and begin their assessments on both men, Malcolm closes his eyes again and considers how lucky he is to have Gil in his life. He probably would've died back there if Gil hadn't thrown himself at Malcolm to get him out of the way.

And while he's grateful that he'll have company for this particular trip to the hospital, he hopes that he never has to see Gil injured again. Gil belongs out in the field, keeping the city safe, not stuck in a hospital bed because of a run-in with a killer.

As he drifts off into an uneasy sleep, he hopes their next case will be a cut-and-dry murder. Something simple, with no tragic back-story or secrets worth killing for. 

Something that will keep Gil out of harm's way.

It doesn't seem like too much to ask.


End file.
